From George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, 8 March 1793
To Thomas Jefferson
United States [Philadelphia] March 8th 1793
Sir,
Being desireous of having a full and accurate knowledge of such things as are required to be done by or through the President of the United States, by the laws passed during the late Session of Congress, and which are deposited among the Rolls in your Office—I have to request, that the said laws may be examined for this purpose, and that you will furnish me with extracts of such parts or clauses of them as relate to, or require the immediate or special agency of the President of the United States.1
Go: Washington
LS, in Tobias Lear’s writing, DLC: Jefferson Papers; Df, in Lear’s writing, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DNA: RG 59, George Washington’s Correspondence with His Secretaries of State; LB (photocopy), DLC:GW.
1. For Jefferson’s response to this request, see his second letter to GW of 10 March. GW wrote a similar letter to Edmund Randolph on 11 Mar., which reads, “I have to request that you will examine with a careful attention all the laws passed during the last Session of Congress, and select therefrom such parts or clauses as require the special agency of the President to carry them into effect, and report the same to me, together with the department through or by which such things are to be executed” (Copy, in Tobias Lear’s writing, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters; LB, DLC:GW). No written reply from Randolph has been found, but GW’s executive journal for 13 Mar. records that Randolph responded to this letter on that date ( 88).